An AI personal finance assistant can help you stay on top of your money. The goal is to make budgeting easier by giving you a “person” to assist you.
These AI financial assistants “talk” to you about your finances through messages. You can reply back to messages or initiate the chat.
To benefit from the assistant, you’ll need to connect your banking accounts, so your AI can crunch the numbers.
The AI financial assistants I tested use in-app messaging, Facebook Messenger or SMS.
These assistants do not take over your accounts. They cannot open, close or make transfers. Your AI financial assistant just reads the transactions, analyzes the info and shares them through chats. Maybe in the future, they’ll have more features to interact with your banking accounts.
They have similar functionality but target different types of users.
Try one or try them all. Then decide which chatbot becomes your go-to financial assistant.
The AI Financial Assistant apps process:
- Signup quickly and easily with Cleo, Charlie, and Trim.
- Connect your banking and credit accounts for a more comprehensive experience.
- Go through the tutorial and start asking questions.
Best Negotiating AI Assistant: Trim
Trim is a personal finance assistant that analyzes your accounts to find ways to save you money by canceling unwanted subscriptions, negotiates with cable and internet providers, finds better insurance, and more.
Cost: Free
- Analyzes your accounts to find recurring subscriptions and cancels them
- Negotiate cable and internet bills
- Provide personalized financial account recommendations
- Get automated weekly transfers into a high-yield savings account*
- Get a payoff plan, receive expert advice, and lower your APRs*
*These are additional paid features such as Bill Negotiation, Debt Payoff, and Trim Simple Savings
Best feature: Trim’s cancellation of subscriptions and cable/internet negotiation.
How they make money: Trim is also compensated by third-party partners, such as credit card issuers, for referring customers to them
Get started with Trim.
Best Personality AI Assistant: Cleo
Cleo is an AI-powered chatbot giving you insights on your money. It sits above your bank account and analyzes your spending. Cleo uses that data to create budgets and give you a range of tools to help you with your money, spending, and goals. You can chat with Cleo through the app or on Facebook Messenger.
Cost: Free
- Set and keep track of daily, weekly or monthly budgets
- Setup bills and wallet
- Review debit charges
- View your balances
- View latest transactions
- Analyze your spending habits with categories
Best feature: Cleo’s personality and “roasting” feature
How they make money: Cleo offers an upgraded subscription service. Additionally, Cleo plans to offer financial products in the future.
Get started with Cleo.
Best Friendly AI Assistant: Charlie
Charlie is your best money-savvy penguin friend who is available to chat with you about your finances. Charlie messages you through Facebook Messenger. He’ll let you know about your balances, spending, and offer tips. You can only chat with Charlie on Facebook Messenger.
Cost: Free
- Check balances and recent transactions
- Alerts you of any changes or surprises
- Crunch your spending numbers
- Save for specific goals, or just for a rainy day
- Share ideas to cut expenses
- Send deals on the services you already use
Best feature: Charlie sends daily money tips that are customized to my finances.
How they make money: Charlie offers deals which may earn then a referral income. I couldn’t find how they make money on the website.
Get started with Charlie.
My Smile Summary: Using AI Financial Assistants
I think these assistants are quite helpful. It’s easy to sign up and get started.
These AI assistants are best for people who want that extra layer of control. I enjoy the chat feature and alerts.
After using Trim, it canceled 2 subscriptions I had forgotten about. They were small amounts so I hadn’t noticed with my schedule. Cancellation has its limitations, but it worked for me.
Charlie, on the other hand, has been a treat to chat with. He’s in line with my personality. I like the articles and tips that are sent just-in-time. Maybe that’s because Charlie knows I’m spending too much.
I haven’t used Cleo for too long, but I am liking the AI’s personality. I can’t wait for it to learn more about my spending and “roast” me. Roasting is a feature where Cleo will tell you how it is without sparing any words. Prepare to get financially roasted.
Note: The Smile List includes products and services that I or my contributors have used for a minimum of 60 days. The goal is to share our personal experience using the products, not merely based on the affiliate income we may earn. But, if you decide to use any of these products and click the link provided, we may earn income from the list. We thank you in advance for considering these products and helping us in our mission. Again, you can always check our financial marketplace to search, filter, and find the best product to meet your needs.
